Slovak Civil Vital Records

Background

The Slovak Civil Vital Records Project focuses on the former Hungarian counties (megyei) which became part of the newly formed Czechoslovakia after the First World War and are now completely or partially located in Slovakia. For the complete list of counties and territories please refer to a Wikipedia article “List of counties of the Kingdom of Hungary located in Slovakia”.

The concept of Civil Registration, which meant that everyone in each town was registered by the government in the same book, regardless of their religion, began in the Kingdom of Hungary in October 1895. Prior to that time the government of the Kingdom required each religious community to record vital records (i.e., births, marriages, and deaths).

The objective of the Slovak Archives Records project is to photograph, digitize and transcribe every Jewish record in these civil registration books from Slovak archives that have not been microfilmed neither by FamilySearch (LDS) nor by Slovak government. Other than traveling to Slovak archives or hiring a researcher to go there, the only way for genealogists to research these records is through this JewishGen project.

Information in the Original Data

Civil records from 1895 until 1906 have more information than the Jewish community’s records and the civil records created after 1907. However, the  pre-1906 records tend to have more information about towns of births for parents of a child being born or married. 

The records from 1895 until around 1920 were written in Hungarian, after that date Slovak (or sometimes Czech) was used. The records after 1922 are generally not available for public (due to 100-year protection period rule). The register books are moved from respective town hall registry to the archive when the newest record in the book gets older than 100 years (which means that towns like Bratislava or Kosice can release new books every 12-18 months, while for smaller towns it can take another 20 years).

Registration books were kept in a single town but covered vital events from that town and several surrounding villages as well.  Sometimes the responsible town was shifted at a specific point in time.   

Database Fields

The database includes the following fields:

• Name — Surname and Given Name(s)
• Birth Records: of the child
• Death Records: of the deceased
• Marriage Records: of both the bride and groom
• Date of Birth — Birth Date of the Child, in format DD-Mmm-YYYY.
• Date of Death — Death Date: DD-Mmm-YYYY.
• Date of Marriage — Marriage Date of the Bride and Groom: DD-Mmm-YYYY.
• Age — On Marriage Records; for both the bride and groom.
• Sex — Gender of the child on birth records: “M” for male, “F” for female.
• Father — Father’s Surname and Given Name
• Mother — Mother’s Maiden and Given Name
• Town where registered / Record Number — The purpose of the record number is to aid in finding the original record either in JewishGen’s repository or in the State archive (if researcher would like to request the legal extract or certificate). The standardized record number is IMG/YEAR-REC, where IMG is a file number in the specific volume (book), YEAR represents the actual year where the record was written and REC is the folio number of that particular record.
• Járás / Meyge — The District (járás) and County (megye) of the place of birth, death or marriage
• Town Information
• Birth Records — The town or village where the child was born.
• Death Records – The town where the person died and/or death was registered
• Marriage Records – The Town where the civil marriage took place.
• Comments — Other useful information in the record.
• Birth Records: Parents’ town of birth; father’s occupation; notes on illegitimacy; an indication if the child died (and the date); etc.
• Death Records: town of birth, cause of death, marital status, age, etc.
• Marriage Records: names of witnesses, or the bride and/or groom’s town of birth, date of birth and occupation.
• Source — Name of the Slovak State Archive (SSA) where the original books are kept; record book volume.

Contents of the Database

A complete inventory can be accessed by clicking here.

Click here to order original record images.

Notes on Searching the Database

Researchers need to remember that these are index files, no attempt was made to replicate all the data in the original registers.  Researchers should go to the source record to obtain additional information such as witnesses, notes by the registrar, and other information.

Acknowledgments

This database is a unique contribution, and would not be possible without the hard work, dedication, and volunteered time of many volunteers.

Peter Absolon is Coordinator of this project. Please contact him if you have any questions about the records. To volunteer for the project or learn more about JewishGen’s Hungary Research Division, please contact Vivian Kahn (vkahn@kmort.com), the Division’s Director.

Updated December 2023.